Say what!? Big Apple to host country music awards show

NEW YORK -- Never mind that the city lacks a country radio station or that the mayor looks silly in a cowboy hat: The Country Music Association awards are coming to the big city next year.

"This is a huge coup for New York," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday, wearing an off-white Stetson. "This will not only strengthen country music's worldwide recognition but will also showcase New York to a whole new audience."

The announcement, made at City Hall, was attended by Kix Brooks, half of the country music duo Brooks & Dunn and president of the Country Music Association's board of directors, and country stars Trace Adkins, Julie Roberts and Phil Vassar.

"We knew there's an audience for what we do here," said Brooks. "This isn't just a fluke or some kind of novelty thing."

The awards are scheduled for Madison Square Garden in November 2005. It will be the ceremony's first time outside Nashville, Tenn., where it debuted in 1968.

After the news conference in New York, CMA Executive Director Ed Benson rushed back to Tennessee to announce that the 2006 awards show would return to Nashville.

"2006 is the first of a multiyear commitment to be here," Benson said from Nashville. "This is the home of the CMA."

The awards show traditionally has been held in the Grand Ole Opry House, but Benson said the 2006 show would be held at the Gaylord Entertainment Center.

"Nashville will always be our home," Brooks said at the Nashville news conference. "Nashville is what this show is all about."

Despite the genre's low New York profile -- Bloomberg mangled the names of country superstars Shania Twain and Tim McGraw, and a reporter who wanted to ask Brooks a question mistakenly called him "Mr. Dunn" -- the city is the No. 2 market for country music recordings, with about 2.5 percent of all U.S. sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a system that tracks music sales.

Garth Brooks played before hundreds of thousands of people in Central Park in 1997 and touring country acts frequently sell out Madison Square Garden. And Twain, Emmylou Harris, the Dixie Chicks and Faith Hill ring up 6 percent to 11 percent of their album sales in New York City.

New York City began wooing the CMA in May 2003, following up on its successful bidding for the Republican National Convention. Besides emphasizing the city's status as a media capital, officials produced a video that featured Bloomberg pretending to strum an acoustic guitar.

"Despite my guitar playing," Bloomberg said, "it worked."

Asked whether the white Stetson would become a permanent part of his mayoral get-up, Bloomberg demurred.

Cracked Brooks: "You might want to look in the mirror first."

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